Day 2, Svalbard to Norway

1630Z 28AUG24, Day 2, Svalbard to Norway. 24 hours of sailing, however the winds are weakening.

Current Position: 73 15N / 018 08E
24 hour progress: 146nm, 6.1kts avg SOG, approximately 185nm to the Norwegian coastline.

We have had a good ride south on the northerly winds. Zephyros loves a deep broad reach in a stiff breeze. Overnight the winds built and we ended up with 2 reefs in the main and 2 in the genoa. We kept this setup until early this morning when we started shaking out reefs as the wind gradually decreased. By mid day, all the reefs were out and the winds continued easing.

L'Éléphant decided to move from their wing on wing yesterday evening to also sailing a reefed up broad reach overnight. We stayed within 3nm of each other. We even pulled ahead for a bit. However, in the lighter air of this afternoon, they have taken off. They pulled out their asymmetric about 2.5 hours ago and further laid down the challenge. We resisted but as they pulled about 5nm ahead we decided we would put ours out as well. They continue to sail faster than us and are now 8.5nm in the lead and have kept a bit better wind. We are sailing with a full main and the asymmetric spinnaker on a broad reach.

Olivia is starting to show up on the AIS about 16nm behind so they seem to have made similar progress, just that we had a bit of a head start and motored a bit faster leaving Svalbard. Now they are gaining on us a bit as we lose ground to L'Éléphant and generally struggle to move as well in the lighter air. The rally continues.

The sun had begun to briefly set before we left Svalbard, but as we move south we are only now really seeing our first hours of darkness at night since mid-June. Feels indicative of summer slipping away even if the temperatures are rising a bit.

The weather has been mostly gray with some sun and blue sky peaking out on rare occasions. This morning's sunrise was lovely with L'Éléphant 2nm to the west and Bjørnøya (Bear Island) 30nm to the west and visible.

All continues to be well aboard. The seas and mal-de-mer are settling and appetites are returning. Thoughts of landfall are beginning. We continue to see lots of sea birds and are looking forward to fishing for a cod again.